Play 20 Questions and Revitalize Your Love Life

By Ellyn Bader & Peter Pearson

Do you remember the game “20 Questions”? You could ask 20 questions to elicit and eliminate and finally discover what animal, vegetable, or mineral the other person was thinking about. You can use a variation of this game to enrich your love life and build a stronger bond in your most intimate relationship.

In our work with couples, we like to help them formulate a vision of the kind of life they would like to create together. A powerful vision involves recalling and revising the important dreams you had when you first got together and identifying new hopes as well. Sometimes this means exploring “little buds” that are unconscious, but waiting to blossom. A vision contains something you really want and evokes enough passion that you are willing to invest sustained effort to bring it about. Your vision contains strong desires that are aligned with your values and supported by a plan.

THE LOGIC OF ELEVEN

I recently came across this very funny but also strangely insightful list and thought I should share it with you. Enjoy!

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1. If time doesn’t wait for you, don’t worry! Just remove the damn battery from the clock and enjoy life!

2. Expecting the world to treat u fairly coz u r a good person is like expecting the lion not to attack u coz u r a vegetarian. Think about it.

3. Beauty isn’t measured by outer appearance and what clothes we wear, but what we are inside. So, try going out without clothes tomorrow and see the admiration!

4. Don’t walk as if you rule the world, walk as if you don’t care who rules the world! That’s called Attitude…! Keep on rocking!

5. Every lady hopes that her daughter will marry a better man than she did and is convinced that her son will never find a wife as good as his father did!!!

6. He was a good man. He never smoked, drank & had no affair. When he died, the insurance company refused the claim. They said, he who never lived, cannot die!

7. A man threw his wife in a pond of Crocodiles. He’s now being harassed by the Animal Rights Activists for being cruel to the Crocodiles!

8. So many options for suicide: Poison, sleeping pills, hanging, jumping from a building, lying on train tracks, but we chose Marriage, slow & sure!

9. All desirable things in life are either illegal, banned, expensive or married to someone else!

10. Laziness is our biggest enemy- Jawaharlal Nehru
We should learn to love our enemies- Mahatma Gandhi

11. 10% of road accidents are due to drunken driving. Which makes it a logical statement that 90% of accidents are due to driving without drinking

-AUTHOR UNKNOWN-

Uncovering the Pain Behind Your Child’s Anger

Learn how to recognize the reasons for anger, and whether it’s appropriate or not.
by Shana Schutte

As an elementary public school teacher, I was appalled when one of my first grade students stood on a chair, threw his arms up and screamed, “I hate you!” followed by numerous expletives describing his feelings about me. Because I’d been a compliant child, I didn’t understand why so many of my students were angry and I didn’t know what to do.

Perhaps you’re at the end of your rope like I was. Not because you’re a teacher with angry students, but because the sweet baby you birthed is now an irritated four-to-seven year old who is pitching fits, screaming, yelling and throwing things.

You’re not alone.

“Play Is The Work of the Child”

“Play Is The Work of the Child”
Maria Montessori

Play activities are essential to healthy development for children and adolescents. Research shows that 75% of brain development occurs after birth. The activities engaged in by children both stimulate and influence the pattern of the connections made between the nerve cells. This process influences the development of fine and gross motor skills, language, socialization, personal awareness, emotional well-being, creativity, problem solving and learning ability.

The most important role that play can have is to help children to be active, make choices and practice actions to mastery. They should have experience with a wide variety of content (art, music, language, science, math, social relations) because each is important for the development of a complex and integrated brain. Play that links sensori-motor, cognitive, and social-emotional experiences provides an ideal setting from brain development.

According to Montessori, the essential dimensions of play are:

May your day, be a Shay Day

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

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‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?’

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Parents and Grandparents

Coping with the Parenting Generation Gap

There’s no denying it: Parents and grandparents don’t always see eye to eye on important issues like discipline, feeding or safety. Here’s what you need to prevent minor disagreements from exploding into full-blown intergenerational warfare:

You Are Loved

Think about this.. You may not realize it, but it’s 100% true.

1. At least 2 people in this world love you so much that they would die for you.

2.. At least 15 people in this world love you in some way.

3. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don’t like you.

4. Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep.

5. You mean the world to someone

6. If not for you, someone may not be living.

7. You are special and unique.

8. When you think you have no chance of getting what you want, you probably won’t get it, but if you trust God to do what’s best, and wait on His time, sooner or later, you will get it or something better.

9. When you make the biggest mistake ever,something good can still come from it.

10. When you think the world has turned its back on you, take a look; you most likely turned your back on the world.

11. Someone that you don’t even know exist, loves you.

12. Always remember the compliments you received. Forget about the rude remarks.

13. Always tell someone how you feel about them; you will feel much better when they know and you’ll both be happy.

14. If you have a great friend, take the time to let them know that they are great.

To everyone reading this: ‘Thank you for your time.’

-AUTHOR UNKNOWN-

TEN WAYS TO NURTURE YOUR CHILD

I want to share this entry I read in a blog recently. I think it is a lovely article.

I am blessed to have two boys…a 19 year old (a contemporary music student going into second year at university) and a 10 year-old precocious boy who keeps me REAL busy with his creativity and never ending scientific ‘experiments’ and inventions, largely due to the influence of Horrible Science books and magazines that he reads.

Do visit his blog Just Bloggin’ if you have time but please excuse his grammatical/errors because he built the whole blog himself without my help and wrote the posts on his own initiative, took the pics and uploaded all the stuff himself and only allowed me to have a look at it after his post on planes :).Notice that he also copied/rephrased my post header hehehe! Since then, he has been studying for his exams and only had merdeka last Friday 🙂 when all the papers were over. So from last Friday, Nick has been playing with all his toys…something that he had not been doing since August. From young, he has always been very disciplined and is very independent so I am greatly blessed. I am not writing much about my older boy not because I don’t love him but because he wants his privacy…However, his girlfriend whom we love too visits my blog :)..

Today, I thought about the whole topic of self-esteem. From my observation, some children are born with more self-esteem than others but there’s a lot we can do to promote our child’s emotional well-being — a stronger sense of self can make them more emotionally resilient when problems come their way.

As we know, providing for our child’s physical needs (food, shelter, clothing) is a fairly straightforward matter but trying to provide for their emotional needs can be trickier. Nourishing a child’s emotional health is important because we must lay the ground work for an emotionally healthy adulthood.

Here are some pointers that I have listed out briefly…largely from my own failures and successes in bringing up my two boys.

• Every stage in a child’s development is different and equally important so we must be realistic when forming expectations of our child.
• We must encourage them to express their feelings and when they do, we need to respect those feelings. When they are crying either in sadness or frustration, we must let them know that everyone experiences pain, fear, anxiety or anger. From there, we need to try to learn the source of these feelings. If they are angry, we need to help your child express anger positively, without resorting to violence.
• Mutual respect and trust must be there. When I was a younger, I used to lose my temper easily but I have since learnt the folly of my ways and I hate to get angry because it is not good for my health. So, I have learnt to keep your voice level down even when I don’t agree. In this way, we can keep communication channels open.
• Listening to our children is so important. To do this, Use words and examples your child can understand. Encourage questions. Provide comfort and assurance. Be honest. Focus on the positives. Express your willingness to talk about any subject.
• Problem-solving and coping skills are important because I realize that as a mom, I have to set a good example to my kids and to walk away if I cannot control my own frustration or anger; otherwise, the consequences could be detrimental.
• I have also learnt that it is vital to encourage your child’s talents and accept limitations. Set goals based on the child’s abilities and interests — not my own expectations. I made this big mistake with m y older one. Both my boys are musically precocious and each of them play three instruments. I wanted my older boy to be a classical pianist but turns out that he prefers the violin and guitar while piano is his third instrument and last month, he told me that he wants to take up the saxophone. As a teen, he told me not to let him live out my musical ambition. Yup! He is a smart and wise guy and that woke me up. So after all we went through, I am glad he is excelling in music and never cease to celebrate accomplishments. Today, I truly love both my boys and appreciate their uniqueness and try to the best of my ability to spend time regularly with them.
• Foster your child’s independence and self-worth. Help your child deal with life’s ups and downs. Show confidence in your child’s ability to handle problems and tackle new experiences.
• Discipline constructively, fairly, and consistently. Use discipline as a form of teaching, not physical punishment. All children and families are different; learn what is effective for your child. Show approval for positive behaviors. Help your child learn from his or her mistakes.
• Love unconditionally. Teach the value of apologies, cooperation, patience, forgiveness, and consideration for others. Sadly, because my younger boy is an angel, the older one felt that I love his little bro more…I had a tough time convincing BOTH of them that I love them equally!!! If you read Nick’s blog, he made a comment about it. After all the blunders I made, I learnt the hard way, how to be a better mom and am blessed now cos my boys and I are very close:).
• So, do not expect to be perfect; parenting is a difficult job!!! Don’t be too hard on yourself if you foul up :). Just learn from it, move on and make sure we restore the child’s self-esteem.

Finally, if you have not realized it yet, 🙂 parenting is not for cowards so we have to be strong-hearted, positive and enjoy the years that we have to nurture our children with much love, patience, prayers and understanding.

May God bless you and your family richly. Have a good day.

You can read more at her blog, Masterwordsmith.

Stress at Home

Dr. Archibald Hart answers how stress at home and parents’ attitudes affect their children.

by Ask the Expert with Dr. Archibald Hart

Q: Does the attitude we take as parents have a dramatic effect on our children? We’re getting them up in the morning with “Hurry up. Get ready. I’ve got to go to work and you’ve got to go to school. Take a bite and eat quick, hurry, get ready!”

A: I think that’s absolutely true. Children are being taught to live at a hectic pace in today’s society. The home — the family environment — creates the stress problems that so many children experience later in life. It’s in the home, therefore, in the family, that the solution to the problem lies. What we model to our children teaches them the values that will determine whether they’re going to live a stressful life or not.

Can Vision For A Better World Replace Bottom-Line Thinking In Business?

The other day, I read a report about social entrepreneurs on BBC’s website. As a social entrepreneur myself, I was intrigued about how the concept was viewed by people in more conventional lines. As I read through the article, I couldn’t help but feel an affinity to the people who shared the same values as I did – how to make a living by directly contributing to the betterment of society.

A Social Entrepreneur is someone who starts a business that contributes positively to society or the environment. Of course, one can argue that all businesses contribute to society by creating jobs, generating economic growth, etc. But whereas conventional business models focus on profit first with any social benefit being incidental, the focus of the social enterprise is entirely different.

The social enterprise is first and foremost set up with the primary objective to contribute to society and (if possible) make a profit. You can identify a social enterprise by a few characteristics.